


Empty Chairs, Empty Table

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Memories, Past Character Death, Reincarnation, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 04:01:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17073089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Merlin stands in an empty ballroom and drags his fingers over smooth and dusty wood. His fingers catch in a particularly deep groove, and it makes him tremble with the memories. He can still see Gwaine flipping the knife, Percival bumping him, and Arthur’s glare cutting across the room as the metal had sunk into the wood.Here, he thinks, they talked of revolution. Here it was they lit the flame…





	Empty Chairs, Empty Table

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Merthur Daily](https://merthurdaily.tumblr.com/)'s 1o Years. 
> 
> Day 2: Lyrics,  
> based on the song "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" from Les Miserable.

The table had cost Marlin Emory everything; his savings, his land, the dinky little shack he called home. He’d sold ancient manuscripts and golden pieces and authentic armour. All of which he’d claimed had been mysteriously bequeathed by some distant relative. It hadn’t exactly been a lie. 

But now Merlin stands in an empty ballroom and drags his fingers over smooth and dusty wood. His fingers catch in a particularly deep groove, and it makes him tremble with the memories. He can still see Gwaine flipping the knife, Percival bumping him, and Arthur’s glare cutting across the room as the metal had sunk into the wood. 

_ Here,  _ he thinks,  _ they talked of revolution. Here it was they lit the flame… _

He’s almost relieved no ones is there to see his tears as his fingers drag across a dark stain. Percival sat here. He was steady, always, even when others had indulged into much ale. But once, when the battle had gone well, when the surrender was easy and bloodless, they had been gifted a wine made from fruits from a land beyond the sea. It was sweet, like honey, but tart like a lemon. It went down smooth and people forgot they need be careful with it. 

Percival’s hand had slipped. Whether from the wine, or from Gwaine’s hand hidden beneath the top, no one had ever discovered the truth, but not even Merlin’s craftiest spell had lifted the color from the wood. 

It had always made him uncomfortable, the shape of the patch- it looked so much like the stains leaking from the chests of those left on the fields. Merlin had read a prophecy in it. Arthur had laughed. 

_ Here they sang about tomorrow… _ Merlin’s knees trembles as he reaches Elyan’s chair. He places both hands on the table, stands and looks, and tries to remember the bawdy tune the quiet man had once sung. A dirty ditty that made the king blush and the knight’s laugh and his sister frown. All he can recall is the eulogy Elyan sang once. Low and mournful and so somber, despite the spoils carried into the treasury, that he must’ve felt the future too. 

_ But tomorrow never came. _ Merlin has to sit in Leon’s chair, the way the older knight had needed to in the end. His whole body slumps, the wood digging into his elbows. Leon had always been quiet. Listening, absorbing, gently guiding. When his body had grown frail, when his hair had greyed and Camelot’s walls begun to crumble, he’d asked Merlin to guide him back to his long abandoned seat. He’d sat for a while, eyes glossed with ghosts and tears. And then he’d stood, kissed Merlin’s temple, and gone back to lay down for the very last time. 

One by one, Merlin touches the wood in front of the seats. Conversations echo in his ears and memories swirl before his eyes. Parties and weeping, babes and lovers. Weddings, funerals, birthdays, and battles. 

Mostly though, there was  _ faith. _ The ardent belief they’d held in the good they were doing and the king they were following. Mordred’s chair scrapes hard against his skin and part of him wants to burn it beneath his palms. But then he remembers the boyish flush, the way his grin had never gotten the hard edge the older men’s had. He thinks of his exuberance and his innocence, despite all he did there at the end. No one else had ever dared sneak kittens and puppies into strategy meetings. Something brushes Merlin’s ankle, and for a moment,  _ phantom faces at the window, phantom shadows on the floor.  _ Merlin fears he might be sick. 

_ Oh my friends, my friends forgive me.  _ There’s one chair Merlin hasn’t gone to yet.  _ Oh my friends, my friends don’t ask me.  _ He doesn’t want to look, but he must. Everything in him trembles.  _ What your sacrifice was for. _ Looking is going to do what centuries and poisons and witches couldn’t.  _ Empty chairs at empty tables,  _ he turns and the whole world cracks wide open. The walls around him shudder and the air sighes,  _ where my friends will sit no more. _ He closes his eyes against the grinding, shrieking of the earth shattering.

And then a quiet voices says, “They could see a world reborn,” like it’s just an afterthought. Merlin opens his eyes and the world rights itself. The edges are soft but sturdy and the creak is just the shifting of an old building. Arthur sits there, bathed in light streaming through the tall glass windows, glowing gold like the crown he once wore. 

Arthur had one told Merlin no man was worth his tears, but when he strides forward and grabs the king; when he hauls him up by the ridiculous white shirt and smashes their faces together, the salt tracking down his face comes from both their eyes.  


End file.
